Exhaling in relief as silently as possible, Embry waited to hear both the shut of the closest door but also the pneumatic whine of the outer door before bursting out of the corner office.
Rye flung himself out of the drawer at the same time—or, well, he tried to. His exposed skin was a bluish white, from either the cold or a lack of oxygen or both, and his hands were visibly shaking as he pushed himself up into a seated position.
Embry diverted her path from the vent to help him out of the drawer, but he waved her off. “Get the vent cover. I’ve got it.”
She did. But he did not have it.
Just as Embry removed the cover and began levitating herself up into the vents, an injured hiss escaped into the silent room with the snap of the closed drawer. She whirled toward the sound to see Rye holding his wrist, blood dripping onto the drawer fronts and the tile.
Embry dove for Rye.
“It’s fine, just a sharp edge.”
It wasn’t fine. His palm was sliced clean down the middle and even as blood pooled in the well between his fingers and wrist, the droplets of crimson wereeverywhere.
She shooed him. “Go, I’ve got it.”
“Em—”
With a decisive unzipping of the belt bag she’d brought forexactly a cluster like this, she withdrew a vial of stain remover and shooed him further. “Go.”
The stain-be-gone made quick work of the blood, just as it had when Oakley had unfortunately sprayed her to-go cup on Embry at Atelier Aradia. She cleaned the sharp edge of the drawer—noting Rye hadn’t climbed into the empty one labeledRIDDLE,O., but the one next to it—plus the whole front of the cabinet, and then hopscotched across the tile, working to get every last drop.
Just as she realized he’d somehow gotten some blood on the steel base of the examination table, the purr of the pneumatic doors whispered into the room. Immediately, Rye’s good hand lowered from the ceiling, a silent beckoning. Embry muttered her levitation spell at speed, aiming for and acquiring his hand. Rye’s grip was icy yet comforting and gone too fast, because by the time her whole body was through and situated belly-first back into the duct, he was already magically lowering the vent cover.
The bright smell of fresh coffee entered the room before the pair of zombies. They were mid-conversation, and Embry used their own voices to cover the four little pings that sounded as the vent screws slid into place. Then she sealed the vent with the soundproofing spell.
“The ME says it’s another one. I just don’t know how that can be.”
Anotherwhat? Dead student? Vampire?
“If she says it is, it is,” the other said with a slurp. “Brown can’t get out there until he’s done with—Hey, does it smell like blood in here to you?”
Crap.Rye’s hand was still bleeding profusely. He’d stuffed it into the sleeve of his Henley and lifted it as far above his heart as he could in the shallow metal tunnel, but that only contained the drip-drip-drip; it didn’t seal it. He was hemorrhaging straightinto the cotton, which was beginning to swell with moisture, the metallic stink of it growing. Embry rifled through her bag, but her customary bestselling stink stopper wasn’t there. This was a problem she couldn’t fix.
“I mean, it always smells like blood in here to me” came the answer. As the zombie half yelled across the room, Embry dipped into her tiny bag and fished out a tube of salve. “Anyway, better finish the data entry before they arrive.”
Footsteps came from beneath them as Embry looked Rye straight in the eye and took his sleeve-covered hand in hers. He let her do it. She laid his forearm—still shaped very nicely, Goddess damn him—over the vent and brought his closed palm into the aegis of her metal duct, scooting herself backward to have more room to balance on her forearms over his bleeding hand.
“I knew it! Missed a spot.”
Embry and Rye both tilted their heads to peer around his outstretched arm and through the vent slats. One zombie was crouched by the base of the table, coffee cup discarded. If the zombie looked up, they’d be aimed straight at their point of entry. “The night crew loses a body,andthey can’t clean properly. I mean, it’s inexcusable.”
The second zombie came over to inspect the table leg. “Vampire blood is ripe—that’s a lot of aroma for such a small drop.”
“Like, how did they miss it? How didwemiss it?” Then, “There’s got to be more, right?”
Embry’s thumping heart began to pound as the pair fanned out to inspect the space for blood. She dumped the rest of the magical stain remover on Rye’s sleeve, watching it sop up the blood like a sponge. Then oh-so-carefully she rolled back the sleeve, revealing the cut.
It was deep; the metal had taken to his frigid flesh like a meat cleaver to cold butter. It had to hurt like hell. Yet when she lookedup to flash her skin perfector salve at him for his consent, his face wasn’t contorted, it was curious. Color had returned to his cheeks—his heart was probably racing as fast as hers—and the crease between his brows didn’t appear to be from pain but from interest. He nodded.
Embry gooped a thumb-sized measure of salve onto her fingers and gently rubbed it over his palm. The formula sparked with magic, the warmth of it flooding between her skin and his. Embry shifted her grip, cradling his hand in both of hers, applying the salve with deliberate strokes of both her thumbs. It wasn’t the medical-grade stuff Van and Allegra had used, but hopefully it’d work.
When it was done, she looked up only to find Rye staring back, a wonder in the depths of his inspection that Embry wasn’t sure she’d seen before. Though the intensity of it was reminiscent of the way he’d studied her like art the night of the homecoming court.
As if she were something precious rather than familiar.
Embry couldn’t take the heat of it anymore, her heart rabbiting so hard against her breastbone, she was sure the zombies below could pick up on it. She dropped her gaze, but when she did, it settled on his palm. And before she knew what her own body intended—
